If you want to Get Started in SEO, you’re in the right place, because I’m going to tell you 4 things you need to do right now to start ranking better in the search engines.
1)Get familiar with Google.
Go to Google’s Webmaster Central and poke around some. You want to see if your site is being indexed by Google, get analytics installed on your site, and sign up for Google’s webmaster tools. Also, be sure to read their webmaster guidlines, because you want to make sure you’re following their rules, or else you may get blacklisted, and no one wants that.
2)Do some keyword research.
This information is vital – before you can start ranking for keywords, you need to decide WHAT keywords you want to rank for. To do this, start out at Google’s Keyword Tool. This is just one place to do your keyword research, but it’s a start. Enter some keywords that relate to your site – click “Get Ideas” and see what else comes up.
You’ll notice the approximate search volumes showing up for the groups of keywords. While the ones with the largest numbers may be tempting, I’m going to let you know up front that those will also be the most difficult to get a good ranking for. I’d suggest selecting 5-10 terms that are closely related to your site that come from the mid-range terms.
This will be the beginning of your keyword portfolio, and they will be the terms we’ll focus on for now. We should also note, that since we’re focusing on the local market you service, we’ll want to add the city name in front of all of those terms. For example, if you chose “house cleaning” and live in Kansas City, you’ll do well to rank for “Kansas City house cleaning.” Make sense?
3) Make sure your content matches your keywords.
Your best bet is to have 1 page on your site for each of your keywords. This may not always be possible, but it’s much easier to optimize for 1 keyword on a page than for two or three.
The content on your page is the most important factor when it comes to ranking for your search terms. The most important part of this content is the first 30 or so characters in your pages “Title” tags. Make sure to put your keyword in those tags.
On your page, you want to include the keyword you want to rank for as much as you can without sounding odd. Remember, we’re writing this for customers first! If you are using a headline on your page, make sure to include your keyword there. You can also use things like bolding and italics to emphasize those words.
Here’s an idea for you if you’re having trouble coming up with stuff to write for each of your keywords: do a “Services” section of your website, where you can create a page for each service you provide. For example, a Plumber might have the following pages in his services section:
- 24 Hour Emergency Plumber in Kansas City
- Drain Clog Removal in Kansas City
- Bathroom Repair in Kansas City
- Garbage Disposal Repair in Kansas City
(see where I’m going with this?)
Imagine if your site got 20 more leads a month for free because it ranked for the right words…would that improve your business?
4) Get some links.
One thing that is very important to the search engines is the number of links you have coming in to your website. These are other websites that have decided that your content is worth “pointing” to. We’re going to start out easy, with three tactics you can use right now:
Free directory submissions – There are a lot of directories out there – just Google “SEO Friendly Directories” to get started.
Links from related businesses – Go to Google and search for your keywords. Look at the top results that are ranking now, and see if there are any ways you can request a link from those sites. It may be as simple as leaving a comment on a blog, or exchanging links with another webmaster.
Links from Area Specific Sites – Google the city you service/work in. See if you can ask for links coming from those sites. Great sources for these links are City Websites, Chamber of Commerce sites, and local Newspapers. Many local papers have blogs that you can interact with and get links.